The Windmills Of Your Mind
by RosaQuartz
Summary: A slightly more legal exploration of Robert Fischer's consciousness.
1. Chapter 1

**The Windmills Of Your Mind**

**Author: RosaQuartz**

**Rated: M to be safe (mostly for possible language)**

**Warning: I'm not really sure where this is going to lead. It might get slash-y, it might get violent, it might get just plain confusing.  
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**Disclaimer: Wouldn't I just love to make money on _Inception_? Well, since life's not fair, I don't. The only thing belonging to me is the way the words link together and most of these combinations have already been used by someone else before me. I have no choice but to acknowledge that.  
**

**A slightly more legal exploration of Robert Fischer's consciousness. The pieces will basically be scattered around the movie storyline.**

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_**1. Like the circles that you find**_

Thirty seconds ago there were two people in the room. Now, only one. Realizing a truth like that sends an empty jolt in your stomach, as if you all of a sudden found yourself standing on the edge of something too endless for you to endure. Or as if you were falling in a dream, just before waking up – there's a word for that, right? If there is, I've forgotten.

Suddenly alone, I feel almost relieved. Almost. It's surprisingly easy to _know_ your father just died. _To comprehend_ – that's the difficult part. It requires too much thinking, going too deep, trying to understand death. If there is a concept more fiendish to try and think through, I hope I'll never be introduced to it.

I've spent many fruitless hours of my life trying to wrap my sorry limited head around another death that happened years ago. I've rubbed my temples and thought of my mother like Albert Camus' _L'étranger_. Her presence in nothingness drills through my skull and into my brain – quite literally, since I'm prone to mind-shattering migraines. I've always connected these things. Too much thinking with too little knowing must lead to something.

I see myself standing there, looking at him, the thing that once – it already seems ages ago – was him. We look strange together, two shard-like creatures in a small room, more literally disconnected than ever, yet hardly anything has changed. I'm still talking, looking, trying hard. He's still so-close-so-far, not hearing, ignoring my desperate efforts to reach him. I feel like a man who has suddenly noticed he's spent years doing everything imaginable to impress a brick wall. Stupid as hell. A street-clown playing his best tricks to a cynic who walks on by holding onto his mobile phone as hard as he can. A stuffed animal in a souvenir shop, sitting on a stand, smiling its best and cutest for someone who would never ever waste his money on a fucking tacky toy dog.

A nurse comes in and looks at me as if I were to burst into tears any moment. I wonder if it's expected of me or if I just look like a fool about to cry. I say nothing. I don't want to stay here any longer. I know this is the moment I should start having my own private burial, finally giving him what he has deserved all these years – the same he has given me. Instead, I slip the abandoned picture off of its broken frame and put it into my wallet. The eleven-year-old boy in me is falling on his knees by the bed, barely smothering the violent sobs shaking his body. The man is walking towards the door, shoulders stiff and face perfectly composed. You couldn't tell it's the boy whose mind is inside the man's head now. The man doesn't think. If he did, he would realize what he is doing to himself.

The people come. I keep my composure, take the empathetic looks and condolences with short nods and half-broken smiles. Some faces turn a little downwards seeing my official coolness. It's not proper – I should at least be a tiny little bit shaken and bloodshed. Why bother, I almost want to ask them. Why should I lay on the ground scattering ashes in my hair when everybody knows the truth anyway? Besides, I'm practically doing myself a favor. They've begun to think Robert Fischer Jr. might be a heartless man after all. That's good for business.

I go to my hotel room, make the last call to my secretary and then just sit by the window looking at the benighted city of Sidney until three A.M, which is when I realize I should probably get some sleep before my early start. Sleeping is not high on my agenda, has never been, and in my dreams I'm usually prosecuted, chased and end up getting shot by someone whose face I can't see. I nearly call room service for coffee, but stop in time to remember I don't want to talk to anybody. So I kick off my shoes, loosen my tie and lay down on the bed for a moment, staring at the cream-colored ceiling. I imagine being someone else and telling myself _"Well, you could always sleep through the flight, you know."_ Except I know I've never slept on a plane and don't plan to start tomorrow. Or, today.

There are so many things to be organized, attended and taken care of. Uncle Peter will probably deal with some of them. Most of them if I appear miserable enough. Is that what my father would do, whine like a child and let others do his job? Of course not. And I know I won't do it, I'm just entertaining myself with the idea because it's late and the world is a rather lonely place to be for a little boy. Why can't someone just take control, be in charge of _everything_ and let me rest for a while?

_Everything_. It makes me remember something, a word or two, a vague scene in the past, like a dream or a memory so memorized it's not real anymore. Me lying on a bed a bit like this, a hand holding my wrist and a face close to mine. Face that I've forgotten; it has disappeared under layers of forgetting and trying to remember, so deep I couldn't dig it out anymore. But the words are still there, tattooed on the skin of my mind as a reminder of a time when I was held close and not pushed away. "Don't worry. I'll take care of everything. We'll go together."

Wouldn't you just go anywhere if you were promised you wouldn't have to be there alone? Anywhere, scary places, dark places, desolate places, easily forgotten places? If someone was holding your hand and following you there? You would go.

I was once told to explore my own sub-conscience -

Maybe I fell asleep. It's very bright when I open my eyes, my cell phone is ringing and the world is quite ordinary today. I get up, shed my ever-so-slightly rumpled clothes and head for a long hot shower. The soap in the hotel room smells like a piece of furniture made of teak. I suppose that's unisex enough for all the possible soap-users but I only suppose that to keep my mind away from _things_. I wash and dry my hair, dress with unnecessary concentration and pack my briefcase. Every second the thought of my father being dead, _non-existent_, and put in a box becomes a bit stronger, a bit louder and a bit more disturbing until I find myself moving restlessly around, shaking my head and twisting my hands like a hysterical woman. That's it, no more postponing of the social interactions; I'll go crazy here. I call my driver. It's time to go.

Sitting on the back seat, I can see my face in the rear mirror. Shades of white and gray blend on my skin, signs of an uneasy night and long-lasting stress. I crook my fingers to tousle my hair a little, cringe at the result and smooth it again. My driver meets my eyes but knows enough not to say anything. We do this every now and then, "Mr. Fischer puts on a normal face", and we never comment the process. I throw my head back and breathe as deep as I can.

"You know what, just drive back to the hotel. I don't want to go."

"Can we stop here, please? I feel like eating a cheese-burger."

"What if we crashed into that wall there? Let's just get it over and done with."

"Have you ever driven really really fast through the city center and killed a few pedestrians while you were at it?"

"Here, have my passport, get into that plane and pretend to be me for the rest of your – I mean my – life, okay? Should be simple enough."

"I changed my mind, I just want to dump my father's body into the Pacific. Can you arrange that?"

Things I would like to say but don't. The normal face is on. We chat about the weather conditions and traffic and I'm completely balanced and aware of my responsibilities. I talk to my secretary about numbers and press releases when she calls me, promise to write my name on Important Papers, don't make a fuss when there's a problem with the private plane, order a cup of bad coffee at the airport, play my part perfectly hiding behind my mask and stand very still under the inquisitive glances of the people who obviously recognize my face. Perhaps this day is nothing but yet another episode – _Robert flies home with the corpse of his father, part I_ – of the show, of this performance I've had going on since I don't remember when. Perhaps it doesn't even have to be very hard. Perhaps I can stop caring.

The plane sets off.

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**I try not to make too many boring author's notes explaining the story to death, but since this the first chapter I'm publishing here _ever_, I'd like to take this liberty. All kinds of reviews would be GREATLY appreciated. If there's something to nit-pick about my grammar etc., please do! The story is about to continue (I've managed to channel all the energy reserved for my summer studies into this). **

**BTW, the title of the fic and the title of this chapter are from the Dusty Springfield song _The Windmills OF Your Mind_. I think it somehow suits the story.  
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	2. Chapter 2

**First of all, thank you so much for the reviews! Second of all, here's the part two. Third of all, w_arning: _pretentious philosophical thinking ahead! **

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_**2. Briefly about dreams**_

Have you ever known a person who is so fascinated by their own dreams they could keep going on and on about them? "And _then _you showed up – you were in it, you know – except that it wasn't you but a giant polar bear, upstanding and wearing glasses – pink glasses – standing right next to that goat I saved from the helicopter, the one that chopped that guy's head off – " Sometimes you have a funny dream you think might be worth sharing as a casual ice-breaker, that's understandable, but these people – they just don't seem to realize that picking and poking at your sub-conscience in public is not very tactful, especially if you've dragged others in there as well. You want to ask them: "So, what did I do in your dream dressed up as a polar bear? A fucking polar bear, are you serious? Why was I there? What the hell did I represent in the backwards workings of your head?" You feel a bit awkward. If you're a little neurotic like me, you don't like being in someone else's mind, doing inane things and looking like a moron. As if your own life wasn't enough. As if you didn't humiliate yourself enough.

You might be one of those who say it doesn't matter. If someone blabbers about all those many, many things that happened to them during their afternoon slumber, it's sometimes laughable and most of the time simply tedious as hell, but not a big deal. You dream what you dream, that's all. If you get offended by _someone else's dreams_, you clearly have a lot of hard work to do with your self-esteem. Maybe so, but I beg to disagree. Dreams are more than you think. They can be dangerous, they can reveal a truth so hurting you will bleed. They can poison you, they can change you, they can take you to the dark side of the moon and hold you hostage there, never letting you go.

Think of it. We can't control what arises deep in our minds. If a venomous idea slips in and your thoughts begin to buzz around it like worried bees, it could take over and you would just have to surrender. That's why locking it up, forgetting, never thinking about it again is so fundamental. We are capable of it, so we should do it. The intruder goes into the abandoned box with a solid lock at the back of the warehouse of your ideas, in the darkest corner where you won't see it or remember it. It should stay there and it will, if you've done everything right. Only in your dreams does it come creeping out in the open, reminding you of itself again, hanging around your mind like an evil spirit, making you think of horrible things, spreading over you, feeling you up with its toxic little paws until you get used to it and don't struggle against it anymore.

When I was a child I sometimes lay awake a long night in the dark, thinking about one thing. I was afraid to sleep, afraid to go any deeper with that thought. It was the common thing every human being capable of questioning things wants to ask. _What if none of this is real?_ Philosophy was invented because of that thought, but I imagined myself the only one who was in danger of becoming possessed with it. My mind circled around it, too young a mind to truly grasp anything, feeling only fear when facing the eternity without answers. I believe some people shrug at the thought and go on living their lives – "it _feels _real, anyway" – some embrace it, some just want to run away. But where to go, if this isn't _anywhere_? It's like a Rubik's Cube, only you turn the pieces over and over again and still don't get it right. Some people insist on twisting it in their hands hour after hour even if everyone tells them to stop, saying it's not that important. They never finish it. They just say: "Look, if I detached this piece and that, and swapped them, you know. Then it would go right." They'd quite seriously prefer cheating to leaving it unsolved.

And, you know, with the Rubik's Cube there's always someone who stands by, looking at you trying to solve it, saying: "Oh, come on, it's actually pretty simple."

Back to the people who talk about their dreams. I lied a bit. Earlier. About my dreams. Really, if they were just those stress-dreams I mentioned, with pogroms and shootouts, I'd be fine. I'd go to sleep without a care in the world. Being shot isn't that bad, not in the dream world. But they are not. Not just. Stress-dreams come and go, but my normal dreams – if you can call them normal – my normal dreams -

Well. They feel very real. They are thick with ideas locked away and forgotten. I can be walking up and down the same endless stairs trying to recall something, only feeling I _should_, I _must_, I _need to_ remember. Everything is very familiar as if I was walking in a house I've once lived in and yet I don't recognize a single detail. I can open doors, step into rooms as if I were going home only to realize, the moment I'm inside, that it's not my home, that it could never have been. I look out the window, see an ocean, a forest, a city of skyscrapers, but stepping out, I find myself in a different landscape and feel so lost and so alone. I keep walking, driven forward by that something I know I would remember if I tried hard enough. I know I have to remember it before it's too late, before I wake up or, worse, get so lost I can't go back. That seems entirely possible in the dream. The feeling of knowing I'm dreaming is very strong but not in the least calming. My mind is shadowed by the vague idea that I shouldn't be alone there, that I should have someone with me to guide me home. As if I was somewhat inadequate dreamer, not competent enough to get away when the alarm goes off and the day is about to light up. In the dream, I begin to wonder if the sun has risen, if my cell phone will soon begin to beep, if the world is waking and I should be too. I start to panic. Just a bit at first. Then more as the creeping anxiety of the dream unfolds. My fingers shake as I pinch myself like a little girl in a children's story, I can feel it but I'm not awake, I'm not and I should be. The feeling of being trapped into a senseless world fills my head like an acid liquid and I scream and run and my mind is just a colorless haze. The thing I needed to remember surfaces once before fading into desolate darkness like a picture spread so thin it's impossible to make any distinction between it and the back-round.

And I snap awake. It's still dark. I reach out my trembling hand to switch on the light. My skin is covered with chilling sweat and my heart beats so fast I can see it when looking down my chest. I feel sick. The horror of the dream is still there when the warm golden glow of the night lamp flows into the room. The numbers on the screen of my phone are practically the same every time. 2:42. 3:13. 2:58. 3:48. I get up, there's nothing else to do. My head aches; I take a painkiller and open the window, stand by it slowly drinking water and breathing, looking out but seeing nothing. I'm trying to think through the flashing images in my head, organize them and get out of the maze at last. What was it that I remembered, right before waking up? Clearly it was there and therefore it could be retrieved. This is _my_ mind, for God's sake. My dream in my brain, my memories. If I don't have access to my own brain, who has?

It's gone. Gone so quickly it doesn't even seem that important but I'm left knowing it is. And as daunting as the dream was, I feel a strong urge to go back, look again, be slightly more observant. That's the truly horrible part.

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**Ok, I'm making an author's note again. It might be fair to warn you that the story isn't very chronologically organized but I think it rather fits the subject.  
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**P.S. I've always wanted to use that Rubik's Cube -metaphor somewhere. Years ago I bought the small 2x2x2 -version of the Rubik's Cube and for some reason my dad - who is actually a smart guy - sat up till 2 A.M. trying to get it solved. Then he decided there had to be some technical error in the thing and wanted to break it in pieces. I think there's something really tragic about that.  
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